But the redcaps and the staff officers – it was their presence which made the infantryman feel that, after all, they were only looked on as brute flesh to be branded and shipped for the slaughter; the menacing cordon of military policemen between the battalion and the dock gates, and the tall, cold officers with red bands round their caps and sheaves of papers in their hands who walked among the squatting soldiers like farmers at a cattle market; they left in the battalion a sense of insult and resentment.

Towards evening they embarked, still lazy and apathetic from the heat of the day, aboard big, flat-decked ferries towed by tugs. Dumbly and without curiosity they settled themselves on the decks and slept or smoked for an hour while the smooth and sparkling sea slipped past them until, at the unexpected sight of land again, they humped their rifles and packs and crowded, still only half-curious, into the bows.

It was the Isle of Wight. The word spread among them; the officers nodded confirmation. None of the men had expected this; yet none of them, indeed, had known what to expect. The day had given them a sense of climax. Now they were tired, thirsty, sticky with sweat, eager only to drop their packs and slip out of their belts and buckles; and the evening’s anti-climax seemed only faintly funny.

They landed on the jetty of a clean little seaside town and marched off by companies, led by guides from Movement Control. They clattered through narrow, cobbled streets, the noise of their boots and their voices echoing among the houses and bringing the townsfolk to their windows. The head of the column moved out of the town, toiled up a steep lane between tall hedges and entered a field that was full of bell tents.

A camp; another bloody camp. Tired, bewildered, vaguely disappointed, the men collected palliasses and blankets and stumbled into their tents.

Before dark the cookhouse was operating, a hot meal was served in the dining tent, a canteen had been opened, Daily Orders were posted and a guard mounted. It seemed as if they were here to stay.

What’s happening? Who knows? Why tell us? – we’re only the poor sods who have to go and do the job? Hell, who cares? Die in battle, die of boredom – who cares?

The Fifth Battalion went to bed.

The machine remote and inscrutable, had picked them up and put them down. For the next four days they waited, from each day to the next, for the machine to pick them up again; for four fantastic days they lived between two worlds, cut off from both, as if between life and death.